Environmental Medicine News

The News Review:

- India’s faltering education system
- How much is too much for young arms?
- Ginseng linked to improved breast cancer outcomes
- Fears over drug-resistant TB in Aids patients
- Rosen: Which Dean was I with?

India’s faltering education system
BBC News - Aug 18, 2006
?Akshit, IndiaMr Basu is correct in pointing out that the rigidity of Indian academic institutions are to be blamed for the deterioration of standards. However, the increasingly bureaucratic nature of universities, as well as the drain of the brightest students to the US after school in India is also to blame. I can’t believe, however, that the IITs and IIMs are not in the top 300 - I would like to see the basis of such a study before I can take that as a credible result, since the graduates from these institutions are more sought after in their professional fields than graduates from Oxford or Cambridge. Rustam Roy, London, UK
The IITs were ranked third-best worldwide for technology, after MIT and the University of California Berkeley and 50th best overall university (Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement (2005)… Basu’s article is unsubstantial and biased. Hope in future, respected news sources like BBC will be more serious in selecting guest columnists. Dipankar, New Haven, USAThere is a curious straitjacket in the Indian education system- that good students study engineering and medicine and mediocre students study commerce. Therefore, the cream of the students is forced to study mechanical subjects with little emphasis on original research. Few have the patience to study classical sciences, since all are after quick money. The poorest of the students are forced to study humanities and social sciences, and it is fruitless to expect them to come up with cutting-edge research. No wonder most of the top Indian academics, including Kaushik Basu, are based overseas.

How much is too much for young arms?
USA Today - Aug 18, 2006
“I thought it was like a regular sore arm and that if I iced it and took some Advil and stuff, it would go away. After maybe a week of hurting, I realized that there was probably something wrong. ”
According to his father, Jim Lewis, even the team’s trainers weren’t aware of the nature of the injury. When he arrived in Williamsport to watch his son play, Nathan had been lifting weights to “strengthen” the arm. When Nathan practiced, he was playing first base and was tossing the ball underhanded. Lewis, who pitched once in the World Series, when Vista lost to Hawaii in the U… Still, such injuries can be a precursor to more serious problems such as rotator cuff and elbow ligament tears that are common in older players. Research by the Birmingham, Ala. -based American Sports Medicine Institute, run by noted orthopedic surgeon James Andrews, who has treated a who’s who of amateur and professional athletes, sparked interest from Little League. Andrews concluded that the sixfold increase he has seen in arm injuries that required surgery had roots in youth baseball. “The statistics all point to the amount (of pitches) as the No. 1 factor,” said Glenn Fleisig, research director at Andrews’ institute. “A lot of arm injuries are showing up in teenagers and 20-year-olds.

Ginseng linked to improved breast cancer outcomes
NutraIngredients-usa.com - Aug 18, 2006
The type of ginseng used - white or red Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng C. Meyer), American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L) - the nature of the product - powder, extract, tablet, capsule and so on - and the duration and frequency. Prior to diagnosis, it was found that 398 women (27. 4 per cent of the population) used ginseng on a regular basis. All of these women received at least one type of mainstream breast cancer treatment (chemotherapy, surgery, or radiotherapy). Ginseng is typically taken to enhance stamina and reduce feelings of fatigue and physical stress… In the US it is estimated to be the second top-selling herbal supplement, with $62m (€48. 2m) in annual sales. Despite such impressive sales figures, Shu said that there is still a lot of skepticism about herbal medicine. “That is why we are taking the observational approach at this time to see whether there is any efficacy. If so, we can go to the next phase… and eventually go to clinical trials,” she said. During the follow-up surveys, over an average of 4. 8 years, the researchers found that number of ginseng users had jumped to 62.

Fears over drug-resistant TB in Aids patients
Guardian Unlimited - Aug 18, 2006
Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, or MDR TB, is mainly found in eastern Europe, but there has been an epidemic in New York and cases in the UK. It can be treated but the drugs are expensive and recovery takes a long time. It was thought there was little MDR TB in Africa but researchers from Emory University school of medicine in Atlanta found 41% of TB patients in a district of KwaZulu-Natal had it. Potentially more alarming was that 10% of them had extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR TB), which does not respond to any drugs. The Atlanta team surveyed the population of one rural district, where HIV infection is rife and Aids drugs have been made available, to establish whether there was drug-resistant TB, and if so, what proportion of TB cases were involved. They tested 1,540 patients and found that a third (536) had TB. Of those, 41% (221) had MDR TB… All those with XDR TB whose HIV status was known were HIV positive. TB is a major risk for people with HIV because the virus depletes the immune system, making it hard to fight off infections. The researchers underlined the worrying nature of their findings in Africa for people with HIV who are being given a chance to lead healthy lives on antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. About this article
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Rosen: Which Dean was I with?
Rocky Mountain News - Aug 18, 2006
They want totax your income and redistribute it to others while you’re alive andtax your estate when you die. Talk about domination. A need to manage uncertainty and threat, and create structure inlife? What would you call liberal inventions like cradle-to-gravewelfare, Social Security, academic tenure, labor unions, socializedmedicine, etc. ?Overreaction to threats? Liberals would ban any substance at thedrop of a hat. They’re scared of guns, obesity, fast foods, popcorn,cell phones in cars. Talk about fear, Al Gore is positively phobicabout his vision of an impending global warming holocaust. On the otherhand, liberals habitually underreact to tangible threats likethe looming financial collapse of Social Security and Medicare when thebaby boomers retire… They’re in denial today about the globalambitions of Islamofascists while the ACLU is paranoid about the”trashing of the Constitution” when essential and reasonable trade-offsare made between freedom and security to deter terrorist acts. Fear? All people fear something. Conservatives and liberals simplyfear and desire different things based on their ideology, theirpolitical agenda and their disparate notions of human nature, the roleof government and the way the world works. Dean laments the “incivility” of some conservatives, today, as ifthis were the exclusive province of the right. When I asked him aboutthe incivility of people like Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, theMoveOn. org crowd, and hysterical left-wing bloggers on the DailyKos,Dean ducked the question. And how is it that this self-described”Goldwater conservative” never finds occasion to criticize lefties andDemocrats? He said he was John Dean, but he sounded strangely likeHoward Dean.